


Difficulties.

by SummerFaerie



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Baby, F/M, OC, team natsu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:07:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5464343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerFaerie/pseuds/SummerFaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Lucy had a baby with Leo, but they broke up. She meets Natsu late at night on a train as she’s shouting at Leo. The baby wakes up and starts crying. Natsu comes over to ask if she’s okay, he coos at the baby.<br/>From the prompt ‘you crouched down to coo at my baby but I forgot to tell you their favourite thing to do is pull peoples hair and now they won’t let go of you’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Difficulties.

Lucy had been having a horrendous day. It was difficult like any other but sleep deprivation was making her even more exhausted. After running multiple errands for people she didn’t know for less than minimum wage, spending three hours with a bratty, screamy child for a house-sitting job in which said child had made their mother fire her and then running around trying to find a full time job with a proper wage that would give her decent hours all while carting around the love of her life. Actually, the last part made her smile. Her baby girl, Isabelle. She was all big, sparkling brown eyes and unruly orange hair, she had very little resemblance to her mother except for their eyes. Lucy, unable to afford a baby sitter or nanny, had to bring her baby out everyday when she struggled for money and applied for every job possible. She would like to find work in another shop or restaurant. She had used to work in a high-end clothing store but when she fell pregnant, she had been fired for poor work effort. No one would listen to how it was unfair.

Grumbling about how horrible men are, she started to lift her buggy onto the train so she could go home and get to bed.

The train was gross. There were chewing gum marks on the walls, floors and backs of seats. The floor clearly hadn’t been cleaned in forever and Lucy sighed as she looked for a clean-ish seat before the train left the station. Movement to her right caught her attention, looking over a familiar face started towards her as the train lurched into action. She took the nearest seat and grabbed on the rail with one hand while keeping hold of her pram in the other. She was trying to think of what horrible things she must have done for karma to hate her so much today when a familiar head of spiky orange hair started walking up to her. She pulled her pram closer to her and away from the man coming towards her, she was immensely glad Isabelle was asleep.

He stopped in front of her, looking down into her eyes.

“Lucy...” He began when Lucy cut him off.

“I am so not interested in whatever you have to say, Leo.” She stated. At this he looked slightly taken back, he became a bit nervous and had fiddled with his tie.

“Why are you still refusing to take me back, you know I love you,” he continued.

“Well you have a very deceitful way of showing it,” she told him.

“I promised I wouldn’t do it again,”

“I don’t care!” She exclaimed, her voice raising with the anger she was feeling, fatigue was a catalyst for her anger it seemed. She had drawn a couple of looks from other passengers.

It had been the hardest time of her life when she and Leo got divorced. She was only 25, but she had been dating Leo since she was 14. When he proposed at 18 she was delighted. She had been completely in love with him. At 20 they were married and then after four years of marriage, they divorced. Leo had been desperately been trying to get her back since then but she was having none of it. Two months before the divorce Leo started acting funny, perhaps starting to feel guilt of what he had been doing the entirety of their relationship. Then he messed up, Lucy came home slightly earlier than expected from having lunch with her friends and when she got inside, she found her husband in bed with another woman. She had been so hurt, it felt like she was being ripped apart. The other woman had shrieked, shouted “You promised she wouldn’t be back until later” and ran into the bathroom, hugging the quilt around her body, which left Leo, with no dignity, no excuses and naked in their marital bed. This just added to her theory that all men she happed upon were horrible. Lucy just stood there, unimpressed and hurt, looking at her husband for an explanation. When one didn’t come immediately, Leo just lying there, shocked and almost looking remorseful, Lucy began to pack a bag.

When she had emerged with her hospital-for-the-baby bag and another duffle bag which she started shoving clothes angrily into, he moved to put some trousers on.

When she was finished she turned around and Leo finally spoke, his face showed little but in his eyes had displayed shame and what she was sure was disappointment. Probably about having been so careless in his affair.

“Lucy, I’m so sorry,” he began.

Lucy finally snapped, shouting “No! You’re not, You may be sorry I saw, but other than that shut up. That is unacceptable, Leo! We’re married! We’ve been together ten years!” To which he just looked down, like a kicked puppy. Lucy took a couple of calming deep breaths and continued. “How many times have you done this? How many in our home? How many since I’ve been pregnant?” She asked, trying to calm her anger.

“Lucy, I’m sorry but you really don’t want numbers,” he replied, his calm face had formed a grimace.

“Goodbye, Leo. I’ll call you when then divorce papers come through. You can keep the house, I’ll find a flat, I can’t stand thinking about what happened here,” She spoke sadly, turning to leave and headed for the door, heart breaking at such a rapid pace she had found it hard to keep standing.

Leo stepped forward “Wait-”

And then the door shut.

Lucy had cried until she got into the car, then she headed for a friends house.

Two weeks later and she had a beautiful, two bedroom flat for her and her child, and two months after than that she gave birth.

It had been an extremely stressful and hard time for Lucy and she never wanted to go through anything like it again and she would never take Leo back, even if there was a part of her that still loved him and wanted to. She told that part to shut up and get with the programme. He cheated on you, she firmly told herself.

“What about the baby, I want-” Leo started again, hoisting Lucy back to the present.

“No. I refuse, I got custody, you have no right. Go away,” I sprawled angrily as she tried to get her baby further from the man.

“Lucy, I do not see how this is fair! I would love her and be a great father,” Leo replied in a tone which had sounded like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum.

“That is nowhere near the point. You broke my trust, you broke our vows. You are a liar and a cheater and you are never going to influence my child like that,” Lucy spat angrily, as she rose to her feet.

Leo seemed to grow stronger at this. Opening his mouth to reply, he had been cut off when the train stopped slightly more suddenly than usual and he wobbled in his place as Lucy had been thrown back in her seat.

They stopped to observe the passengers getting on. A few business men, a woman who looked like a barista, a obvious student and one strange-but-tired-looking pink haired man who didn’t bother sitting down but stood up, holding onto the overhead rail and slumping against the wall near the opposite door, slightly to the right of where Lucy was sitting.

The train took off and the argument carried on. “Look, Luce. You should know I love you. I was going to stop when the baby came-” The rest of that sentence was never heard when Lucy stood up and full on slapped Leo round the face. By that point everyone in the train was either staring or trying not to stare at the commotion, except the pink guy who was struggling to keep his eyes open. ‘I never did get to do that’ she thought to herself as she rose her voice, not quite shouting, she had tried to repress her anger. “And that makes it okay does it? When the baby came you were going to stop? After ten years of cheating and lying? Come on! I don’t even nearly believe you. You may have thought that but you never would! That is the weakest argument you have came up with so far! And never mind weak! That’s just disrespectful. I know you- I married you! Uck!” She had ranted then flopped back down in her seat, deflated, waving a hand in a motion to leave. by this point, everyone was staring yet the baby had still not awoken. However, Leo being the guy he is, he reached out to touch her arm again.

“Leave!” She shouted.

“Lucy-”

Natsu’s day had just been way too long. His neighbours had kept him up with their party, then he worked a ten-hour shift at the restaurant he worked at, Fairy Tail, starting at six in the morning, then had to run errands for the owner, Makarov; get the shopping, get that business guy’s number, make sure this reservation is still fine, blah, blah. At least he got paid over-time for it and it meant Erza didn’t have so much to moan about.

After all that, he had an increasingly hard time keeping his eyes open and not falling asleep on the floor as his train pulled in and he climbed on board, standing opposite the door and keeping standing so he didn’t fall over. His head ached and stomach lurched as the train took off, his travel sickness not helped by his fatigue, luckily it was not a day that Natsu had forgotten his pills and took two eagerly. He did his best to keep aware and standing. On the other hand, Natsu’s brain clearly had other ideas as his head had kept rolling forward, just for him to snap it back up and open his eyes suddenly. ‘At least it’s Friday’ his brain supplied.

When the couple near him, had started shouting, he had kept an eye on it.

“Leave!” The pretty blonde girl had shouted at him, yet the strange, ginger guy still moved forward.

“Lucy-” Ginger had continued when it hit Natsu.

“Loke!” He yelled at the man, whose head snapped in Natsu’s direction.

“Damn.” Leo whispered under his breath as Natsu came closer.

“Dude, it’s been a while, what’s going on here?” Natsu had asked. “Oh. This is Lucy, my-”

“Nothing.” The girl-Luigi?- had interjected. Natsu sent a pointed look at Leo, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to where Natsu had previously been standing. Awkward small talk flitted between the two until the next stop came and Leo excused himself, getting off the train. When the doors closed Natsu slowly approached the girl who was now cradling her awoken child.

“Hello, are you okay?” He asked tentatively, standing near Linda? who had been staring tiredly at her baby. She had looked up, expression exhausted. “I don’t know whether I should thank you for getting him away or slap you for being friends with the dick,” she spoke, placing Isabelle back into her buggy.

“The first one, you looked distressed. We’re not really friends, ex-co-workers really, he thinks too much about girls. Being distracted and harassment got him fired,” he said calmly with a shrug. At the mention of girls she flinched, which Natsu thought was strange, but then again he had never seen Loke with anyone like that.

“What was happening here anyway?” He had asked, slightly concerned.

“Seriously?” She shot back with a pointed look. At his confused look she answered. “We were married until last year. Those girls you just talked about? Affairs.” She stated bluntly.

“Fuck, sorry, erm-”

“Don’t worry, it’s hard but I get by,” Luigi? Layla? Libbi? explained with a sigh, her eyes had threatened to fall shut but she shook her head.

“Well my name’s Natsu,” he said, reaching out a hand for her to shake.

“Lucy,” she replied, shaking his hand with a small smile.

“You look about as tired as I do, what have you being doing all day?” Natsu asked cautiously, he hadn’t wanted to hurt the girls feelings more than she had clearly been through with Loke recently.

“Errands, tiny jobs, job hunting.” It’s exhausting and although I do love Isabelle, it doesn’t make it any easier carting around a pram all day.”

“Cute name, can I see?” Given a nod as an answer, when Lucy had turned the pram to slightly face him, he leaned in and cooed “Hello Isabelle, how are you?” the tiny baby with hair like Leo’s reached up her hands towards Natsu and grabbed hold of a bunch of his hair. When he had tried to lean away, her grip just tightened and she let out a delighted gurgling noise and smiled. To this Lucy giggled and explained “She likes hair” as she put her hand in the pram to distract Isabelle. Unfortunately, Isabelle seemed to like Natsu’s hair more than her mummy, who thought it was hilarious and laughed a bit.

“It’s probable because it’s pink. She likes pink.”

“That’s adorable,” said Natsu who was still in the clutches of the baby. He then waved his hand in front of her face which gave him the opportunity to regain control of his hair. Lucy turned the pram back and continued to play with her child.

As the doors opened again, Lucy had a realisation. “Oh! My stop is next,” She spoke softly, looking up at Natsu.

“Well I have a proposal for you,” Natsu began, earning a curious look from Lucy.

“I have a bit of influence at the restaurant I work at and where it’s quite large we usually have the need for waiters and such, If you have any experience with waitressing I could get you an interview and you could probably bring Isabelle, at least for a while, Makarov will probably be fine with it and Erza can be bought over with strawberry cake and I can introduce you to a baby sitter as well, she’s my sister Wendy’s guardian; her name’s Carla.”

“Wow, lots of information,” Lucy replied, processing all the information Natsu had sprawled out all at once and shouting “Oh my god! Yes! Thank-you!” when she had. Then quickly carrying on with “I do have experience, than you. Could you really do that?”

“Of course,” Natsu replied.

“Where is it?” She asked quickly as the doors opened.

“Fairy Tail. You can find the address right? Ask for me at the door and I’ll lead you to where. Bring a CV. Be there at nine,” he sprawled fast as she got up to leave.

The next morning, Natsu called work to tell Makarov and Erza about the interview. He then settled down for the weekend on the couch with his cat.

Monday came around and he got ready for work, eating, showering and dressing then putting on his orange and white uniform and his apron in his bag and heading out the door. He got the train to work and stepped off felling ill, he started to walk it off and got to work at 8. He had a waiting shift today so he got changed in the back room and set to giving people their breakfasts as Erza made them. He made a great effort not to eat any of it as he worked as he could see Erza doing as Gray iced a new strawberry cake.

At half 8 Makarov arrived.

“I look forward to meeting Lucy, Natsu,” he had said then left.

At nine o’clock, Lucy pushed Isabelle’s buggy in and smiled at Natsu as he took another table’s order. He waved her over to the back room.

“Go through there, I’ll only be a moment,” Natsu replied to he ‘hello’ and went over to give Levy the order he had just received. Natsu told her he was taking his break and headed to where Lucy was waiting for him. Isabelle was sleeping peacefully in the buggy but Lucy looked worn-down.

“No sleep?” Natsu questioned.

“Not really but at least she’s sleeping now,” Lucy answered.

“Well, I’ll hang with her here while you do your interview, yeah?”

“Thank you, where’s his office?”

“At the end of that corridor,” Natsu clarified, pointing down a wide corridor to the left.

“Okay, wish me luck!” Lucy said with a smile and a thumbs up.

“Good luck, Luce,”

Unsurprisingly, Lucy got the job and quickly got back on her feet. She was still only just paying for everything and managing to create a better home but that was fine because at least Isabelle had a decent home and a baby-sitter (Carla, just as Natsu had said was amazingly motherly, the perfect nanny thought Lucy) within a month.

Natsu gave her a tour of the place. The bar was run by Mirajane and Cana, the restaurant by Erza, the kitchen by Guildarts, the spa by Laxus and the hotel by Macao. Accounting was run my Levy and Makarov owned the place. They each had a team that did different things and the entire populace of employees was huge.

One month in and Lucy had settled brilliantly. Her waitressing skills were rusty but good. She didn’t eat the food and stopped Natsu from eating when he was working waiting shifts. Levy and Lucy became friends fast and Lucy got the knack to stopping Gray and Natsu from destroying the kitchen when they worked together. Erza liked her and the fact it wasn’t only her that wanted Natsu and Gray to stop fighting. In fact, Natsu, Lucy, Gray and Erza became quite a good team for running the food on slow days.

Natsu liked Lucy, he had never taken so quickly to someone before. He though Isabelle was adorable and allowed her to play with his hair when she could, he didn’t even mind if the child wouldn’t let go. He often scaled her building and broke in, before Lucy was home on days their schedules didn’t match. He babysat when she wanted to go out with Levy and she didn’t have to bother Carla or pay him, just made him food.

Lucy found herself enjoying his friendship. Until the point of joining Fairy Tail, every man she had more than briefly encountered was horrible. She had grown to a judgement that Natsu and her other friends were breaking out of her. Natsu was sweet, considerate and didn’t seem to have any ulterior motives (except food). She had met his cat when he had brought it to her house. It was blue, she had thought that was weird then Natsu had told her that his name was Happy. He told her he had rescued him from a shelter, he was a tiny kitten and dyed blue. Natsu said he had no idea why the dye hadn’t washed out by he named him Happy and made him family.

“I’ve had him since I was little, he helped after Igneel left,” Lucy didn’t know more than the basics of Natsu’s background, taken in by Makarov, (as many people employed in Fairy Tail had been) after his father had abandoned him. In return Lucy had told him how her mum had dies when she was young then she left to marry Leo and hadn’t talked to her dad since as he didn’t approve.

A year later and everything was smooth-running. Lucy had a little extra money to spend as she had finished re-furbishing and decorating her flat and she had gotten a little pay rise. ‘Team Natsu’ had acquired Natsu’s half-sister, Wendy, when she turned sixteen so she could work too. They had a good routine and worked most week-day mornings when it was quiet in perfect sync. Natsu ate with Lucy most of the time, bringing Happy with him, Natsu gave her food money and sometimes they ordered out. Once a month or so, team Natsu (minus Wendy) would go out for dinner, the others insisting Lucy wouldn’t pay because that money could be spent on Isabelle and Lucy finding it so sweet she couldn’t fight back. Lucy had learnt a lot about these people and loved them all. She knew Natsu was terribly motion-sick so on days they rode the train home together and he had forgotten to take his medication he would lay across her lap and she would stroke his hair. She knew that due to the training Gray had done as a child to become accustomed to his climate by his foster mother (who had died in an accident) he randomly stripped without his knowledge (hence he was rarely out on waiting duty). She knew Erza was married to a man she was in care with until she ran away and got taken in by Makarov. A man  she hadn’t seen in years until he had turned up on he doorstep a couple of years ago saying he’d finally found her. Lucy knew that these people were true. These people were loyal. And she finally found a family.

Half of Fairy Tail was at Isabelle’s third birthday party. The only other children were Wendy and Romeo, who weren’t so much kids as teenagers and Levy and Gajeel’s two children, who Isabelle had many play-dates with, them only being a year and two years older than Isabelle.

Lucy bought Isabelle a bunch of cute dresses, Erza had brought the cake, Gray had given Lucy a new table cloth and the rest of the guild had just contributed to food and rink at the party.

The first sign of Lucy’s deeper feelings for Natsu had been the gut-wrenching disappointment and worry she had felt when he was an hour late. Him being slightly late wasn’t uncommon but that long for something so significant was strange. When he had turned up ten minutes later pushing a huge wrapped thing through her window then climbing through with Happy on his head, she was immensely relieved. She let out a breath and hugged him, asking “What’s this?” about the wrapping.

“It’s for Isabelle, sorry I’m late it was a last-minute idea and the place took a while to make it. I didn’t want to have to leave to pick it up so you-know,” He said while scratching his head. Lucy smiled brightly and gestured to Isabelle. Isabelle had a hard time with her chubby little fingers but eventually got the present unwrapped. Inside was a huge, fluffy pink dragon. It had dark pink fluff as scales and it’s mouth was open, red tongue flicking out and displaying slightly off-white foam teeth. It’s stomach was the same colour as the teeth and claws. It had legs and detailed wings, on which you could easily see the tendons slightly popping up in the shorter fluff. Isabelle gurgled happily and gave an excited shout of “Thank you, Natsu,” and proudly displayed the toy to her friends.

“That’s amazing Natsu, thank you,” Lucy had said and kissed his cheek.

For a while after that Lucy’s feeling grew. Meanwhile Natsu was feeling torn. He hadn’t had a girlfriend since he was a teenager and Lucy already had a kid- but he was falling in love with her and thought they could be happy.

He decided to wait to make a move until he saw a clear chance.

It was a few months after the faithful birthday when they were riding the train home together. The two had taken seats right next to the door as the had seemed the cleanest. They were sitting in peaceful silence, Natsu looking out the window and Lucy looking through her phone when the doors opened to the stop before Lucy’s. They both stood up and waited by the door. There had been problems with the train for a while but neither of them had taken any notice as it hadn't effected either of them. So when the train skidded to a stop and the doors chimed open it was very unexpected. Lucy was thrown forward and almost off the train just before Natsu had grabbed her and pulled her up against his chest to straighten them up. He looked down to meet her eyes and knew this was the best chance he would get so he kissed her. After, when Lucy had missed her stop and Natsu was unfocused he asked “Wanna have dinner tomorrow?” to which the answer was , of course, “Yes”.

And they all lived happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! I’ve been working on it for so long but more between projects so it’s taken an awful long time. I really like it, especially the first half and last bit. I’d love it if you’d leave a comment to tell me what you think or on my tumblr– fairiesteel.tumblr.com
> 
> Also I might do a sequel, like parts of their life together, domestic fluff and that sort of thing. I think it would be cute (and I sort-of have an idea for a proposal). However, this will have to be after my HP/FMA story as that’s taking up all of my time. But please let me know if you think that’s a good idea (and any idea for bits of it).


End file.
